It was 3 months ago yesterday that Chris and I arrived in Tübingen. So, it seems like it’s a good moment to stop and briefly reflect on 3 months in our new home base.

I must say, in many ways it doesn’t seem possible it’s been 3 months already.  We’ve been so busy getting things set up that it also seems like a lot longer ago that we lived in Bolzano. In just 3 months, we have located, found, and (somewhat) settled into a new apartment. We still are missing big categories of furniture: tables, lamps, and chairs being the primary missing objects. However, since we had to start from scratch this time, and since there are no affordable furniture stores here in downtown Tübingen (which makes it hard to go shopping), we haven’t made much progress in locating more furniture since our last expeditions to the stores. Maybe this month we’ll be inspired.

We’ve done the vast majority of the paperwork that we need to do to get established here in Germany: Chris’ contract is all set, we have a bank account, we have our “permits to stay” until next year (it’s only issued for a year at a time), we have registered our address with the local city hall and we have health insurance set up. It took us over a year to have all that in place in Italy, so it’s definitely been quicker here to get all that in place.

Note to self: always try to move to a place a month before anyone has to go to work. I do think that having Chris free to do everything during the day – compared to his hitting the ground running with his job as soon as we arrived in Italy 3 years ago – made all the difference. Not least of that was the fact that Chris was the one who spoke German, so he had to navigate through all the bureaucracy for us – thanks, again, Chris!

Now, the language issue is another thing that has been quicker for me this time around. Note to self: definitely try to take an actual course in the local language, preferably an intensive one that meets every day.  The timing of the language school schedules was such in Italy that it wasn’t possible for me to do that there. But here I’ve been taking an intensive language course since the end of September, and I can now carry on simple (and slow) conversations in German. OK, probably horribly ungrammatical conversations, but still, people are nice and pretend they know what I’m talking about. After less than 3 months learning the language, I find that pretty amazing.  I’m also enjoying being able to recognize words on signs and also recognize words that I hear people saying around me. The course has exposed me to a ton of vocabulary, and remembering all the words is not something I’m good at. However, I find that learning a language in the country where it’s spoken is like getting the key to a secret code. You hear a word in class, walk out of the door, and you immediately hear that the people are using that word, too. Fun!

The other thing that didn’t take nearly as long as I thought it might was finding people here who are interested in photography. As some of you know, Chris and I started a photography group in Bolzano, the goal of which was simply to take photos and have fun with photography. The only requirements were to have both a digital camera and the desire to take photos each week based on the theme (e.g. lamposts, fountains, etc.). It was a friendly and convivial group, and Chris and I both thought it would be fun to try that kind of thing again here. And it’s all come together pretty quickly. In fact, the reason I didn’t write this post yeserterday – on the actual 3 month anniversary of our arrival in Tübingen,  was because we had a meeting of our new group here in Tübingen. We currently have 7 active members. We met last night at a restaurant  and talked about the photos we’d taken for this week’s theme. Which was, appropriately enough for my blog post today, “Reflections in the Neckar River.” Here are a few photos I took specifically for the meeting, as opposed to all the other photos I’ve ever taken of reflections and previously posted on the blog. 😉

As in Bolzano, I used the excuse of the theme for the group meeting to try some experimental style photos, some of which worked, some of which didn’t. But it’s always interesting to try something new. And it’s definitely fun to be doing a group like this again.

Of course, the theme for the group this time was one I have always enjoyed exploring with my photography. Earlier this week, in fact, I was showing someone a set of my earlier photos — I bought an iPad and have been loading it up with photos that comprise a portoflio of my work. In one of those totally unexpected turn of events, no sooner had I shown the portfolio set to someone than suddenly I was being offered the opportunity to have an photo exhibition here in Tübingen early next year. Serendipity at its best.

I’ll provide more information about that once I know more about it. However, it seems fitting to mention it today:  the working title of the show is Reflections. 🙂

I think it’s safe to say that by in large, things are off to a good start after 3 months in Tübingen. 😉

See you Monday.